“Call me Jack,” he said, entering my condo, toolbox in hand.   

“Is that your name?” I asked.

“No. Canadians can’t pronounce it.”

“Try me.” I might as well chat to him. “Kitchen’s here.  Fridge makes a weird noise. Want coffee?”

After Life doesn’t shy away from things either - in this case, it’s widowhood. The opening scene is a woman with a chemo scarf on against a hospital bed headboard, saying “if you’re watching this, I’m not around anymore.” At the 1 minute, 14 second mark, I’m already crying. And it goes from there. I devoured its first season hungrily in early 2019 in the basement of the house where Jack and I had lived and laughed, and where Jack died just three months earlier. Gervais’ ability to get to the core of spousal death gripped me. I sobbed. I laughed. I loved the series. Seasons 2 and 3 followed, tracking my own grief experience in so many ways, although, to be clear, I didn’t contemplate ending my life, befriend a prostitute, or dabble in heavy drugs.

Our first stop was the 300 sq ft lakeview cabin at Glenn Burney Lodge on Georgian Bay just outside Parry Sound. We’d taken snacks and drinks for two days and nights of straight up R&R. After an evening of wine, chips, and TV, I returned to bed from my evening ablutions to find Kora snuggled in with Jack.

I turned 58 this week, the same age Jack was when we met.

“Glamour and the Hostess” is a favourite of mine among so many good books that made the move to Chandlerville when I downsized. Subtitled “A Guide to Canadian Table Setting,” it’s the Chatelaine Institute’s best advice on how to a Canadian hostess can “set her table for any occasion with every assurance of success, not only in the artistic appearance of the table but in the correct service of the meal.”

When Jack died, 30 months after we married, I couldn’t imagine ever not wearing that circlet of gold symbolizing the happy time when we gave the world the most traditional demonstration of our solidarity in the face to cancer.

In the year before he died, Jack had - with a bit of encouragement from me - sold his 1800 sq ft shop filled with a 30 year accumulation of treasures from his life as an appliance service guy. Things like tools, gauges, scrapped equipment, ACs with coolant to be harvested for $, fridges literally stacked one top of one another. It was disorganized in a way I’d never imagined possible and posed a serious safety risk to anyone squeezing through it. The sorting process - keep, sell for scrap, garbage - was brutal for me, with Jack distracted by reminiscence with nearly every item. Indeed, I left the country for a week because I couldn’t bear watching a process that could have been so much more streamlined.

I’ve bought groceries today for my annual open house in two days. My fridge overfloweth with wine, beer, non-alcoholic drinks, cheese, and veg. And that’s my second fridge. Tiny house living has required some compromise and the 9.5 cubic foot fridge has been the hardest thing to get used to. So I’ve added a gazebo fridge for the party .I need to reduce the contents of my main fridge so I can really ramp up the party food prep tomorrow.

Oh Deep Sleep, I so miss you. As a kid, we were tight. I’d go to bed at 8:30; enjoy your presence for 10+ hours, and wake up refreshed to catch the school bus. You prevented from considering the things that would preoccupy me now like how likely I would fall, bleary-eyed, on the stairs going to the main floor toilet. Or ponder the age-old night-time question - to flush or not to flush. I had been told my father had lost touch with you, Deep Sleep, as he made a frequent night-time pee trip. It seemed, however, like a man thing, not something that would ever trouble me.